Tag Archives: human psychology

March 8, 2017 · 7:02 am

The Future (And Caveman Past) Of Privacy

Let’s face it. There are just some things in the modern world that are destined to disappear. Things like coal power, overt racial discrimination, and the Macarena are destined to become relics of a bygone era. Some already have to some extent. Others, like snail mail, poor WiFi, and the Kardashians, can’t go away soon enough.

So what does this have to do with privacy? Why am I even bringing up privacy? Is this another case of an erotica/romance writer having a few too many glasses of whiskey when he writes? Well, except for the whiskey part, those questions already have answers.

For the past couple of days, I’ve been talking about the emerging technologies that will allow brain-to-brain communication. Like an updated iPhone, it’s one of those technologies that we know is coming. It’s just a matter of getting here and having a major company profit the hell out of it.

You may not think it’s likely now, but at some point someone will find a way to make sharing thoughts an obscenely profitable business. We get people to pay for bottled water and a haunted rubber duck. There are plenty of gullible people with money in this society is what I’m saying.

Going back to privacy, it’s fairly obvious that we’re already in the process of ditching it to some extent. It used to be that the craziest, dumbest, most asinine stuff we said in our day-to-day lives never left our close circle of friends. Now, we feel compelled to share all those crazy thoughts online.

Look at me. I’m doing that right now. I’m sharing thoughts I never would’ve shared in polite conversation 20 years ago. Then again, 20 years ago I had a horrible acne problem and the piss-poor social skills of a ferret so it’s not like I was in a position to do much sharing. The internet and social media has changed all that. It’s given us an opportunity to kick our concepts of privacy in the balls and beat it with a hammer into something else.

This has had consequences. Just ask anyone who had an Ashley Madison account a few years ago. It’s bound to have more consequences, especially as an emerging generation matures into a world that has never known the pain of dial-up internet. This is a generation for whom sexting will be akin to copping a feel in the back seat of a car. Admit it. You envy that generation to some degree.

However, it’s the generation after that who may really deliver the final nail in the coffin of privacy. That generation will likely come into a world where brain-to-brain communication has matured, is a growing business, and has people bitching about fees for sharing certain thoughts. How will that generation view privacy?

Well for once, we really don’t need a thought experiment or some exercise in existential logic. In fact, we need only a history book and a general understanding of how humans form tribes. Go to any message board that celebrates a certain romantic pairing on “Buffy The Vampire Slayer.” It doesn’t take much.

Nature has wired our bodies to be good at a lot of things, albeit in hilariously crude ways. Just look at the design of the male scrotum. However, one design that has been remarkably efficient is our ability to form tribes and groups. It’s that kind of coordination and cooperation that has helped us dominate this planet, build civilizations, and form Hugh Jackman fan clubs.

It’s also this uncanny ability to form tribes that’ll make the techno-telepathy of brain-to-brain communication so appealing to future generations. It may seem crazy now to those of us who still dread the thought of someone hacking our phones and sharing all the embarrassing pictures of us on FaceBook. I’ve always worked under the assumption that someone has already hacked my phone and that keeps me from capturing anything too compromising in my private moments.

However, with techno-telepathy, there’s nothing left to compromise. Everything is laid out for someone else to see. Your hopes, dreams, fears, and perverse sexual fantasies are all laid out in a beautifully rendered image. Can we even cope with that kind of transparency?

Well, the average congressperson notwithstanding, we have kind of done it before. In fact, we had that kind of transparency for a good chunk of human history. This brings me back to “Sex At Dawn,” a book that has been remarkably useful in discussing such sexy, taboo topics. In addition to talking about the shapes of penises and female orgasms, it does talk about privacy.

Granted, it’s not as sexy as the other topics discussed, but it is relevant in that it explores the pre-interent, pre-agriculture concepts of privacy. In short, there was none. In fact, from a purely practical standpoint, there couldn’t be any privacy.

That’s because those societies were hunter/gatherer societies. These societies were small, close-knit tribes of people who worked together, cooperated, and shared resources to survive. This is not some hippie commune out of John Lennon fantasy. These were very functional, very adaptive groups that played a big part in how human beings evolved.

In those societies, privacy is kind of redundant because they need to share resources. They don’t have big cities or elaborate infrastructure. They need to cooperate or they won’t survive. Part of cooperation means being overly transparent. That means sharing shelter, living space, food, and lovers. Yes, sharing can be sexy. It just comes at the cost of privacy. Some may think that’s a fair trade.

When you don’t have a lot of property or resources of your own, what’s the point of privacy? It’s not that it’s ignored. It’s not that it doesn’t exist to some degree. It’s just redundant in a hunter/gatherer setting. Keep in mind though, it’s in this setting that our species evolved. For the caveman in us, privacy is more a construct than an innate trait.

That’s because our concept or privacy really didn’t exist until the modern concept of property rights emerged. The concept of a public/private sphere is a fairly modern invention. Again, it’s largely out of necessity. When you have a society that relies heavily on accumulating and distributing resources on a large scale, the need for some measure of privacy is unavoidable, if only to avoid extortion and exploitation.

This is where the techno-telepathy of brain-to-brain communication really gets interesting. Whereas modern notions of privacy are relatively recent, less private habits of our cavemen ancestors are still hardwired into our tribal traits. That means the growth of techno-telepathy could be one of those tools actually complements our caveman nature rather instead of conflicting with it.

What could this mean for us as individuals and as a society? What could it mean for our love lives? Well, if our history as hunter/gatherers is any indication, this tool would make it far easier for us to form telepathic tribes, of sorts. We find people who appreciate and share our thoughts. We develop close bonds with those people. Some may even become romantic and sexual. When you’re sharing your most intimate thoughts with people, that’s kind of inevitable.

It could be disruptive or it could be productive for society. When we start sharing both literal and figurative thoughts with one another, privacy as we know it will take on a whole new meaning. It won’t disappear completely. It’ll just change. We’re terrified of sharing naked pictures of ourselves now. How will we feel when we start sharing are deepest, dirtiest, sexiest thoughts?

It’s an interesting notion to consider and one I hope to see play out in the coming decades. I have a feeling it’ll give me plenty of sexy ideas for future novels.

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March 7, 2017 · 7:02 am

Sex And Hypnosis: A Prelude To Telepathy?

How many times have you wished you could hypnotize your significant other into putting on that sexy costume they refuse to wear? Hell, how many times have you wished you could hypnotize the clerk at the DMV just to make them think you’re next in line? My point is there are all times when we wish we could manipulate the minds of others.

There are some out there who think it’s already happening. They’re mainly Alex Jones fans who think that fluoride in drinking water is a secret plot by the Illuminati to make us dumb, submissive, and gullible enough to listen to men like Alex Jones. Those kinds of people probably aren’t going care much about this post, but those with functional frontal lobes should be able to get something out of this.

Why do I bring up hypnosis? Well, it sort of builds on what I discussed before about the future brain-to-brain communication, or techno-telepathy if you want to call it that. That technology is underway and it is progressing. It’s very likely that within my lifetime, people will be able to share their most intimate thoughts with somebody and that probably includes their deepest sexual fantasies, including those that involve clowns.

Before we get to that point, though, there are other ways to tap into the vast and perverse abyss that is the human mind. Granted, it’s not as scientific, nor is it as effective as we wish it were, but it still has some merit. It’s called hypnosis. It is a real thing. It’s just not as effective as cartoons, movies, and bad pornos would have us believe.

As such, I’m not talking about the kind of stage hypnosis you see in Las Vegas that involve bikini models for assistants. That’s not real hypnosis. That’s a stage act. That’s Hamilton with more partial nudity. Real hypnosis has some basis in psychological phenomena. According to Psychology Today, real hypnosis is defined as:

A state of highly focused attention or concentration, often associated with relaxation, and heightened suggestibility.

That makes sense on some levels. When you’re so focused and relaxed, you’ll basically admit you stole the Mona Lisa. You’re relaxed. You don’t care. It’s more a brain hack than it is mental manipulation.

In a sense, it’s an indirect form of brain-to-brain communication. It doesn’t involve actually hearing thoughts. It doesn’t even involve manipulating them. It just involves putting people into a state where they actually share the thoughts they don’t usually share.

Naturally, this can get sexually charged and not in the way a bad porno would suggest. Most everyone concedes that we live in cultures with some pretty mixed up or repressed views about sexuality. As such, it’s going to really mess up our thoughts and attitudes about sexuality. Just look at Texas.

Being able to share those thoughts, either through hypnosis or techno-teleapthy, will go a long way towards refining sexual attitudes. It gives people with anxieties and uncertainties a chance to share these feelings in ways that don’t involve using exceedingly uncomfortable words. We can, in turn, leave those words to aspiring erotica/romance writers like myself.

With hypnosis, there’s a way to tap into those messed-up, exceedingly repressed thoughts. I’m not talking about the kind of thoughts that reveal some uptight Texas pastor is having sex with gay prostitutes on the side either. I’m talking about the kind of thoughts that would make registered republicans gasp in horror.

The fact that hypnosis is necessary to reveal these thoughts is somewhat troubling. Being more open about sex has been shown on many occasions to be much healthier than repressive alternatives. The future of techno-telepathy may help effectively circumvent that awkwardness down the line.

For now, hypnosis is the closest we have to work with. It has shortcomings, but it’s better than expensive therapy. It can also make for some pretty sexy manifestations. As it just so happened, the fine folks at Cracked.com did a whole article on it. If you’re wearing dry panties, it’s definitely worth a read if only for three words: hands free orgasm.

The Sexy Things I Learned Working As An Erotic Hypnotist

Yes, by the way, being an erotic hypnotist is a thing. I only wish I could punch my old high school guidance counselor in the jaw for not letting me know that was an option. Granted, it’s an occupation that can get creepy, as revealed in the article, but I think you can say that about any job that deals with peoples’ inner-most fantasies.

I don’t know for sure how brain-to-brain communication will affect this process. I imagine it will build on what erotic hypnotherapists have been doing for years. I still look forward to the day when we can give each other orgasms with our thoughts alone. When our brains and genitals have that kind of synergy, the world will be a better place.

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February 25, 2017 · 9:08 am

Sex, Lies, And The Future Of Truth

Admit it. You’ve lied before. Maybe it involved drinking in high school. Maybe it involved  strippers at a bachelor party. Maybe it involved a promise to pull out. Whatever the case may be, regardless of whether you got caught or ended up paying child support, you’ve lied at one point in your life. As the great Dr. House once said, “Everybody lies.”

Now there’s nothing inherently wrong with lying. It depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. If you’re lying to tell a story, which is basically what I do as a writer, then it’s not wrong. If done right, it can actually be pretty damn sexy. If you’re lying to deceive a lover, cheat on your taxes, or prevent your children from knowing about condoms, then that’s pushing it.

I bring up lies because, in watching my share of both superhero movies and romantic comedies, there is one common theme that binds many of these conflicts. No, it’s not Robert Downy Jr. or Hugh Jackman’s sex appeal. It’s that a lot of these plots are built on someone lying and working way harder than they need to in order to keep up the lie.

Take “The Proposal” with Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock for example. In addition to being one of my favorite romantic comedies of the past several years, it’s entire plot was built around a lie that Bullock’s character crafted and Reynolds had to help preserve. Sure, it made for a hilariously entertaining story, complete with awkward nude scenes and moments with Betty White, but it was all built on the foundation of a lie.

Why do I bring up lies? Well, to answer that, I’ll have to get a little personal again and this time, it has nothing to do with me sleeping naked.

I’ve gotten a lot of romantic advice over the years from friends and family. Some of it is good. Some of it is bad. Some of it just plain crazy and involves some rather improper uses of food. However, within the good advice I’ve gotten, there was one common theme and it amounted to this.

DON’T KEEP SECRETS.

I write that in all caps and bold because they didn’t just tell me this as a casual aside. They made it a point to really emphasize the importance of being honest with those you love. No relationship can really function in the long run when both sides are keeping secrets. Say what you will about the Bundys or the Simpsons, but they are honest with each other, often brutally so.

Beyond the advice, there are a lot of romantic stories that involve secrets, lies, and deception. It’s not always in the smooth, sophisticated ways of James Bond either. Stories about lies, affairs, and elaborate deceptions are basically the bread and butter of these stories.

I’ve certainly used those themes. In “Skin Deep” and “The Escort and the Gigolo,” a big chunk of the plot is built around certain lies and deception. Not all of them are intentional either. Sometimes, the characters just don’t have a reason to believe someone is telling the truth.

This brings me to another thought experiment of sorts. Granted, it’s not exactly the sexy kind, but it has the potential to be. It involves the ways in which we expose lies. At the moment, we really can’t be 100 percent sure if anyone is telling the truth. We can’t even be 80 percent sure. People who lie, cheat, and manipulate others still operate and thrive in this world. Just ask Bernie Madoff.

Our entire justice system is built on the understanding that we can’t exactly know for sure whether someone is guilty or innocent. We can put them under oath all we want. People can and will still lie. That’s why we have principles that presume innocence and require that we prove guilt, and the lies by default, beyond all reasonable doubt.

As good as our justice system has served us, to a point, it still struggles to uncover lies. It can interrogate and intimidate all it wants. It won’t always be able to get out the truth. In fact, it can even create even more lies in the process.

This is where the thought experiment comes in. What if we had a device that could, with nearly 100 percent accuracy, tell whether someone was lying? What would that do to our justice system? What would that do to our relationships with others? Would it effectively force us to be more honest with our friends, family, and intimate lovers?

This is another one of those thought experiments that isn’t overly fanciful. Creating devices to detect lies is not a new idea. In fact, it’s been in development for over a century.

Contrary to popular belief, however, there is no functioning “lie detector” yet. Those who claim there is are probably referring to a polygraph. A polygraph is not a lie detector. If anything, it’s a stress detector. It doesn’t detect lies. It detects the stresses on your body. I’m sorry if this completely changes how you see “Meet The Parents,” but that’s the hard truth.

For that reason, the National Academy of Sciences has concluded that the vast majority of research on the use of a polygraph for lie detection is unreliable, bias, and unscientific. It’s also why polygraph tests aren’t considered a reliable form of evidence in a court of law.

This is because it is possible to fool a polygraph. It’s been done before. There are even entire YouTube videos dedicated to helping people beat a polygraph. As a lie detector, it’s not much better than flipping a coin.

Beyond the polygraph, which only measures physiological responses, there is another emerging technology called fMRI, or Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging. This technology is more functional in principle because it measures the very source of all lies, namely the human brain. However, our limited understanding of how the brain forms lies prevents it from being a full-fledged lie detector.

Even so, the use of fMRI has been shown to be an effective way at detecting lies. It’s still not perfect. In an episode of Mythbusters, one of the hosts was able to beat an fMRI. If it can be done on a TV show, then what hope does it have in a court of law with people who lie for a living?

Despite this flaw, research has shown that an fMRI was able to detect lies with 24 percent more accuracy than a polygraph. Overall, it’s accuracy is about 78 percent. That’s pretty good. If it were a winning percentage in baseball, it would be a playoff team. However, when you’re dealing with law and relationships, 78 percent just isn’t enough.

At the very least, the technology is improving. As the science of brain imaging continues to improve, it will eventually be possible to detect lies within someone’s brain with a degree of accuracy that would make every court drama much more boring.

There may even come a day where detecting lies is as easy as talking into a smartphone. Remember that smart blood I mentioned a while back? Well if someone had that in their system, then their brains could be scanned in real time. That means people could know whether they’re lying in an instant. That would basically destroy the entire pick-up artist community.

Now that kind of lie detection is a long way off. However, and I know I say this a lot, there may come a day within our life time when this technology is functional. Given the ongoing development into fMRIs, it may only be a matter of time before someone creates a system that can detect lies with 99 percent accuracy.

What will this mean for criminal justice? What will this mean for divorce proceedings? What will this mean for relationships in general when people know there’s a way for their lies to be exposed? It’s a strange and ominous idea to imagine, but the cold hard truth is that we may have to deal with sooner than we think.

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February 22, 2017 · 6:55 am

Why Your Ancient Ancestors Had Better Sex Than You: Cracked Podcast

For a while now, I’ve been talking about a fascinating/sexy-as-hell book I’ve been reading called “Sex At Dawn.” By now, my sentiment towards that book should be pretty clear. If you’re really in the mood for something that’s non-fiction, but still sexy as hell, then this is the way to go.

There are so many profound concepts and insight in this book, most of are even sexier than you think they are. I’ve discussed a few of them. This book is the one that coined the term “the standard model” for modern sexuality. It’s basically a catch-all term for the so-called “traditional” brand of romance that involves the white picket fence, a monogamy non-kinky couple, and a glut of kids who aspire to be future soldiers, workers, and tax-payers.

The main purpose of the book is to deconstruct that model and highlight just how flawed it is. It does this by shining a light on our evolutionary past, namely the part that creationists don’t think existed. It explores how sexuality manifests in the pre-agricultural, hunter/gatherer societies that once made up the entirety of the human species.

This book, and the narrative it paints, has given me a lot to think about. Some thoughts are sexier than others. Some involve belaboring certain flaws in modern romance, which isn’t quite as sexy. In any case, this book has been an insightful read. If you enjoy the kinky topics I discuss on this blog or the sexy stories I write in my books, then “Sex At Dawn” is right up your alley.

If my own personal recommendation isn’t enough, then maybe this will help as well. Cracked.com, a site I’m quite fond of, does a weekly podcast and every now and then, they’ll get a special guest. Well last week, in what might be the best cosmic karma since I found a $20 bill outside a strip club, they invited the author of “Sex At Dawn“, Dr. Christopher Ryan, to be part of a live recording.

It made for a fun, fascinating, and quite sexy discussion. The staff at Cracked made quite an effort to challenge him and expand on what he wrote about in the book. It made for some pretty amazing insights.

One particular discussion that stands out is Dr. Ryan’s clear assertion that there’s no going back to the more egalitarian, sex-positive culture of hunter/gatherer societies. He makes clear that it’s just not possible, given how modern civilization has entrenched itself with its dogmatic reservations towards sexual issues.

Sadly, I agree with him. I do think it’s impossible to turn the clock back on human society. If there were, then the priests, mullahs, and social conservatives would’ve used it a long time ago. That said, Dr. Ryan does say there might be one way to level the playing field, so to speak. As it just so happens, it involves something else I’ve discussed on this blog. At this point, it feels like cosmic karma is letting me cop a feel.

He makes clear in the podcast that he favors a universal basic income, a very new idea, but one I’ve discussed on this blog extensively. He believes this will be the key to reorienting our society in a way that’s more conducive to the brand of sexuality that evolution has wired within us. It’s an intriguing, but sexy idea and one I hope to explore.

It’s just one of many interesting topics that came up on this podcast. It’s aptly called “Why Your Ancient Ancestors Had Better Sex Than You” and I highly recommend it. Below is a SoundCloud link to it. Enjoy it, but if you’re wearing tight pants, you might want to change them. Just a fair warning.

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February 11, 2017 · 8:18 am

A (Partially) Sexy Thought Experiment: Work Vs. Life

Here’s a question I’m sure everybody has asked themselves at some point in their lives, probably during a long day at work or during mid-terms at school. What if we didn’t have to work? What if our jobs was not critical to our survival?

That’s actually a question a lucky few don’t even have to answer because they live it. The trust fund babies of the rich elites, some of which go onto be the rich, arrogant shits on Instagram, already know that luxury. To them, it’s their perverse concept of normal. The idea of working to survive might as well be alien as having to cook their own meals. It just doesn’t resonate with them.

It’s because there are so few rich, arrogant fucks like that in this world that we can’t answer the question completely. Sure, we all fantasize about how we would live if we won the lottery. I sure have. That’s why I didn’t ask what you would do if you didn’t have to work. I asked what we would do so that means no elaborate fantasies about quitting your job.

By we, I mean us as a society. I mean us as a functioning, lawful, economically viable society and not some liberal utopia that exists only in Bernie Sanders’ dreams. I ask this question because I’ve been talking a lot about poverty recently. I’ve also talked about potential solutions, including the still-radical notion of a universal basic income. Now, I’d like to turn off the cold, harsh reality of politics and facts so we’re free to speculate.

I’m an erotica/romance writer so contemplating fantasies is easy for me. I kind of have to be good at it to write the stuff I write. That often means twisting and stretching my imagination in ways that even a team of Russian gymnast porn stars can’t match.

Every so often, I do try to think in extremes, like radical redesigns of the human body. Other times, I try to think of something a bit more feasible, like entirely eliminating all sexually transmitted diseases.

This experiment falls somewhere in the middle. It hasn’t been tried yet, but there are some places in the world that are conducting active experiments. The results of those experiments are a long ways off and it may be decades before a country has the balls to try it. Even so, like driverless cars and VR porn, it is conceivable that this will happen within my lifetime.

With that in mind, I want to create a scenario for people to imagine. It’s a scenario I think applies equally to men and women alike. The year is 2065. Society has progressed to a point where machines and AIs do pretty much all the work that humans used to do. This is an ongoing trend and one that will likely accelerate.

As a result, basic things like food, water, shelter, and utilities are pretty much free. No intensive labor is needed. To ensure that everyone has the means to live, every adult over the age of 18, although that age could be fluctuate depending on certain conditions, receives a regular basic income that’s today’s equivalent of $52,000 a year, which is the median income in 2013 for the United States.

Without getting into specifics about how the nuts and bolts of this system would operate, let’s just assume for the sake of the experiment that people receive this money the same way the elderly receive social security checks today. They can do with it what they please. They can still work. They can just sit home all day, smoke weed, and watch Netflix if they want. They have that freedom.

What would this do for our collective lives? What if working and surviving were no longer the same thing? This isn’t just a luxury for a bunch of rich fucks on instagram. This is an entire society where nobody has to worry about their next meal, their next rent check, or their utilities bill.

For some people, sitting at home all day, smoking weed and watching Netflix, is the first thing that comes to mind. However, not everybody is wired to do that and only that every day until they die.

People are diverse, eccentric, and erratic. They have all sorts of varying tastes, motivations, and aspirations. Many are stifled because they have to spend a good chunk of their time and energy working just to survive. How many more people would be inclined to pursue different passions if they didn’t have to work?

For someone like me, that passion involves writing erotica/romance. I know if I didn’t have to work, I would certainly spend more time writing more books. I may even find time to write about things I’ve never even contemplated. Not having to worry about money, food, or poor wi-fi would free me up to pursue entirely new ideas.

Beyond the lonely erotica/romance writers of the world, that extra time and energy could translate into more time focusing on family affairs. Parents could spend more time with their children. They would even have time to raise more children. As I’ve stated before, the birth-rate tends to decline when the economy tanks. Would a world like this lead to a never-ending baby boom?

How many families fall apart because the parents are too stressed to hold it together? How many children turn into assholes because their parents don’t have time to love them? How many families never even get started because the stress of work keeps them from having sex?

This is where the thought experiment takes on its sexier connotations. In this world, we don’t have to spend as much time worrying about work, money, or making the next rent payment. We actually have time to get out there, meet people, and form new social connections. Yes, some of these social connections would result in more sex.

Given the decline in sexual activity among millennials, who often enter a lousy job market with thousands of dollars in student debt, I can’t think of anything that would boost more libidos. When you’re less stressed and have more time, you can devote more energy into pursuing the relationships you want, sexual or otherwise.

Now for some uptight religious types, this is downright horrifying. There’s a reason why institutions like the Catholic Church and various protestant denominations revere the whole “protestant work ethic.” The impotent old men who run these institutions know that if young, sexy people are too busy working, they won’t be able to engage in large levels of fun and fornication. If they don’t know, it’s indirectly implied.

Maybe that ethic applied for an era where it took hundreds of people to farm land and hundreds more to protect that land from bandits, but in a future where technology and automation deliver our essentials, it’s kind of outdated. Like sacrificing a goat to ensure the rains come, it doesn’t need to be part of society anymore.

Being the optimist I am, I believe that a future like this will be a lot sexier than what we have now. I concede there will be those who use exploit this world and become fat, lazy slobs that would disgust Homer Simpson. However, I believe that the vast majority of people would use this world to forge new intimate connections.

Some of those connections will be simple fan clubs. Maybe more people will get together to share their fondness of baking dildo-shaped pottery. Who knows what gets certain people excited? Sure, some of those connections will lead to more sex, some of it of a kinky variety that will make every Catholic priest and mullah alive today faint in horror. I still think that, overall, it would be a net gain for the human race.

These are still the ramblings of an optimist who’s trying to make a living writing erotica/romance novels. This experiment may play out very differently in the minds of others, depending on how cynical they are about human nature or how many Nirvana songs they’ve listened to.

Whatever your outlook, I encourage you to do this experiment. I encourage you to contemplate a society where nobody has to work to meet their basic needs. What kind of society would it be? What kind of person would you be in that society? It’s an intriguing thought and, like so many of the others on this blog, one that has a lot of sex appeal.

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February 1, 2017 · 6:40 am

Appealing To The Masses: The Simpson Filter

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I was going to make this part of my last post where I gave some tips and advice to the people behind the Women’s March. I am serious about being on their side on most major issues. I want them to succeed in protesting the current regime in Washington DC. I think it’s good for freedom and democracy when there’s a healthy opposition to established power structures.

At the moment, though, I don’t think their message is getting through. I also think their approach needs refinement. The tips I offered in my last post were fairly basic. This tip requires a bit more explanation because it applies a mix of caveman logic, sales techniques, and good old fashioned cunning. It’s basically the same technique people use to sell time shares and get laid. If it works for that, then it works for politics as well.

I’ve even given this bit of advice a name, one that I hope is easy to remember. I call it “The Simpson Filter.” It’s not quite as original as “Caveman Logic” and not just because it deals with something that is heavily trademarked and protected by an army of Fox’s lawyers. I promise there is a legitimate reason behind this label and I hope to make that reason abundantly clear by the end of this post.

So what exactly is the Simpson Filter? Well first off, in order to understand it, you need to know who the Simpsons are. If you’ve been near a TV it all in the past 30 years, that should be the easy part.

Most everybody on each side of the political spectrum knows who the Simpsons are. For the purposes of this tip, I’m going to focus on what they represent. By and large, the Simpsons are not the Waltons. They’re not happy, wholesome, and functional. They’re not the Bundy’s either. There is a sense love, sincerity, and family. On the spectrum of cartoon families, the Simpsons are somewhere in the middle.

Why is this important? Well, despite being fictional and full of exaggerated dysfunction, the Simpsons perfectly embody the sentiment of the average American. In fact, the show itself even acknowledged this in Season 2, Episode 16, “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?” where Homer’s brother, Herb, wants him to design a car for the average American.

Yes, Homer Simpson fails miserably in that effort, but that only further highlights what makes him the perfect archetype for the average guy. He’s not an expert in a given field. He’s not smart enough to understand the complexities of big issues, be they social, political, or economic. Unless it involves beer and donuts, it’s not going to be a priority for Homer Simpson.

The same applies to Marge Simpson, the more thoughtful and less obnoxious part of the family. Marge also embodies an important component of the average American in that she’s focused primarily on keeping her family intact and semi-functional.

Given the various antics of her family, this is a herculean task, even on a good day. Her uncanny ability to manage her family often shows when she’s not around. This is best shown in Season 3, Episode 14, “Homer Alone,” in which Marge decides to go on a vacation and her family struggles mightily in her absence.

In that sense, Marge embodies the side of American society who struggle daily to keep their family intact and functioning for another day. It’s not that big issues involving the economy, politics, or social issues don’t interest her. It’s that she doesn’t have the time or resources to prioritize them. She can only focus on her more immediate concerns, namely preventing Homer from freaking out about the boogeyman.

Given this context, we can create the particulars of the “Simpson Filter.” If we’re going to use this fictional, animated, overtly dysfunctional family as a model, then any message we craft has to resonate with them. If it’s too much for Homer and Marge Simpson to handle, then it’s too much for most Americans.

For the Women’s March, this is vital. They don’t need to appeal to affluent, college-educated people living in cities and earning more than the median wage. They need to appeal to the vast swaths of less-affluent, less-educated people that occupy the non-urban parts of the country. In short, they need to cater their message to many Springfields of this Country and the Simpson families who live in them.

To appeal to them, it’s not enough to just shout anger and outrage at major protests. It’s not enough to hold large public lectures to inform these people either. Homer Simpson doesn’t do lectures and Marge is too worried about her family to even show up at one.

For any message to work on Homer or Marge Simpson, it can’t just have hard facts about the harsh realities of the world. It’s not enough to list, detail by detail, why the principles and policies they favor are worth supporting.

Homer Simpson doesn’t care for details. Marge can only care so much, given her many other concerns. So for every message about every issue, the contents need to go through a filter to make sure they’ll resonate. That filter includes the following provisions:

  • Get the attention of the Homer and Marge Simpsons of the world, but do it in a way that doesn’t shame or denigrate them for not supporting the message in the first place

  • Don’t assume that the Homer and Marge Simpsons of the world are racist, ignorant, or misogynistic and presume, by default, that they are decent people who just want to get by

  • Keep the message incredibly simple in that if it can’t fit into a commercial between a football game, then Homer and Marge aren’t going to care enough about it

  • Craft the message in a way that appeals to the feelings of Homer and Marge as appealing to emotions is the primary method of generating interest

  • Keep the facts secondary, but never let them be tertiary because in the long run, substance will help strengthen the emotions

  • Make sure the simple, emotional message inspires hope because Homer and Marge are more likely to support something that makes them feel hopeful

  • Link the more complex issues in your message with the simpler issues that affect Homer and Marge directly, ensuring they can associate these issues with their own lives

  • Avoid using language and rhetoric that Homer and Marge don’t understand or makes them feel alienated from those you want them to support

  • The message shouldn’t require that Homer and Marge change who they are, but it should make them want to be better

There are probably many more components to this filter that I haven’t articulated yet. Like Caveman Logic, I hope to refine it in future posts. In following the events of the Women’s March and the issues that will likely be more prominent over the next four years, the Simpson Filter will be a good way of revealing how successful or how flawed a message is.

At the end of the day, how right or valid your message is can only ever be secondary. If it fails to resonate or convince anyone, then it has as much impact as a history lecture by Ben Stein.

It’s an unfortunate, but unavoidable aspect of the human species. It’s not enough to be right or moral. You still have to communicate that message in a way that gets flawed, uninformed, and sometimes misguided humans on your side. If you can’t get Homer and Marge Simpson on your side, then your message has no chance.

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January 27, 2017 · 6:47 am

Villains vs. Anti-Heroes: There IS A Difference

Go to any message boards for comic books, movies, TV shows, or Twilight fan fiction and you’ll hear any number of twisted interpretations of certain characters. Everybody has their own opinions, but let’s face it. Some go out of their way to melt their own brain in an effort to interpret a character in a particular way.

Talk to certain Harry Potter fans and you’ll find takes on Voldermort that are creepier than all the clown makeup and anime porn in the world. As a noted comic book fan, I’ve certainly had my share of twisted interpretations, as well as heated debates on message boards. I understand that these debates are about as productive as spitting into the ocean in hopes of causing a flood, but it also reveals how broad our interpretations can be.

I bring this up because in my many discussions about evil, villains, and recent trends in villains, I knew there was going to be one major complication to this discussion that was sure to piss off certain fans of certain characters. Given how much time and effort some people put into dressing up as certain characters, that’s not an anger to take lightly.

For many of my discussions about Walter White from “Breaking Bad,” I referred to him as a villain. I even fit his narrative into the context of the “Villain’s Journey.” When I watch Breaking Bad and assess the story, I believe Walter White to be a villain.

I did this knowing that there’s a sizable chunk of Breaking Bad fans that refuse to label him as such. To these fans, and they’re not entirely misguided in their assessment, they see Walt as an anti-hero. They see what he did and why he did it as not being fit for a true villain. Never mind the problem with calling any villain “true” in the era of “alternative facts,” it’s not an unreasonable position.

Walter White is not Dr. Doom or Lex Luthor. He’s not Wolverine or Dirty Harry either. There are any number of debates fans can have, and there have been many, on this issue. I don’t want to have them all. My blog, if not the entire internet, simply isn’t big enough for that debate.

However, if I’m going to talk about villains like Walter White, Magneto, and Dr. Doom, I need to address the influence of anti-heroes. I hope to do another more in depth exploration of anti-heroes in a future post, but for now, I’ll keep it in the context of how they relate to villains.

First off, I think I need to make clear that villains and anti-heroes are not the same. Granted, they can be easy to confuse, but they are very different in terms of narrative, motivation, and personality. It’s possible for an anti-hero to be a complete asshat and still be heroic, as Wolverine regularly proves. It’s also possible for a villain to be endearing, as Freddy Krueger movies regularly prove.

So what’s the difference? What sets an anti-hero apart from a villain? Well, it doesn’t help that the definition of an anti-hero is somewhat vague. Even Wikipedia struggles to answer it. The simplest definition it offers is this:

An antihero, or antiheroine, is a protagonist who lacks conventional heroic qualities such as idealism, courage, or morality.

It’s not overly ambiguous, but it’s lacking in that it uses what a character lacks to define them. Unless you’re diagnosing personality disorders, that’s just not sufficient. Anti-heroes are as old as Ancient Greece, Don Quixote, and a time when Clint Eastwood actually had a successful acting career. By any measure, this concept does have roots.

Being a comic book fan, there are plenty of anti-heroes occupying my list of favorite characters. Wolverine is probably the most notable, but there are many others like the Punisher, the Hulk, Deadpool, and John Constantine. Some of these characters, like Deadpool, go out of their way to make clear that they’re not a hero. However, they do have some distinct qualities that set them apart from villains.

Anti-Heroes, especially those in superhero comics, still battle injustice in a larger world, just like traditional heroes. They fight criminals. They protect the innocent. They’ll even save the world from an invading alien army. The main difference is they’re just more willing to be assholes about it.

While most sane people have an innate aversion to assholes, we are willing to overlook a certain amount of assholery if it serves the greater good. Aristotle might have been a racist, anti-woman, douche-bag by most standards, but his contribution to western civilization was pretty damn important for our progress as a species.

There is a limit to just how much douche-baggery we’ll tolerate for an anti-hero, but core sentiment of the character remains. They still want to help others. They still want to save the day. They still, and this is critical, will do the right thing even if it doesn’t serve their best interests.

It’s that last quality that helps unblur the lines between villain and anti-hero. When faced with a chance to do the right thing or do something that’s self-serving, an anti-hero will most often do the right thing. They may be a total dick about it. They may even kill, destroy, or cuss like a hung over Quentin Tarantino. They’ll still do the right thing.

A villain will, at the end of the day, mostly favor the decisions that serve their interests. At the moment in the comics, Lex Luthor is a member of the Justice League and Dr. Doom is the new Iron Man. It’s a long story as to how this happened, and some of those stories are pretty damn awesome, but the sentiment of the characters is still the same.

Lex Luthor and Dr. Doom are being heroes because it still serves their interests. It’s not about doing the right thing for them. They may claim they want to redeem themselves, but that’s really not that altruistic when you think about it. They want to be perceived as heroes. They want to have that kind of adulation. On some levels, it’s inherently selfish.

Compare that to Wolverine or Deadpool. They couldn’t give two whiffs of a wet fart about how they’re perceived. They still do things their own way and their decisions aren’t always self-serving.

By this standard, Walter White is far more in line with a villain. He let Jane, Jesse’s girlfriend, die rather than save her when he had the chance. He poisoned a little kid as part of an elaborate plan to take down a rival. There are all self-serving decisions. These are, by most measures, morally abhorrent. That’s what makes him a villain and that’s what sets villains apart from anti-heroes.

I understand there are still arguments to be made about Walter White’s status as a villain and an anti-hero. I’ll save those arguments for another post. In the end, it’s still somewhat easy to confuse villains and anti-heroes. However, when you break down their character and what motivates them, the line isn’t as blurred as we think.

There’s a place for villains. There’s a place for anti-heroes. I imagine there will be plenty of debates about which is which and who is who, but it’s these very conflicts that help bring out the best and, necessarily, the worst in these characters.

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January 26, 2017 · 6:18 am

The Hero’s Journey Vs. The Villain’s Journey

Let’s face it. When we find a winning formula, we like to follow that formula as closely as possible for as long as we can. Why wouldn’t we? We like winning. We like things that work. Who goes out and buys a broken car just because they’re tired of buying one that works?

In terms of winning formulas in pop culture, few are as tried and true as the so-called “Hero’s Journey.” It’s a formula that’s been around since the “Epic of Gilgamesh,” a story so old that the bible may have ripped it off to some extent. For something to have worked for that long, it must be doing something right.

The concept was somewhat formalized in 1949 when Joseph Campbell described it in his book, “A Hero with a Thousand Faces.” In its simplest, most basic form, he sums up the formula like this:

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.

Read over this simple summary, think back to some of the most iconic heroes of all time, and you’ll find it applies to a lot of characters. From King Arthur to Luke Skywalker to Harry Potter, the formula of the Hero’s Journey is so tried and true that any fiction without it is akin to a cake without frosting.

Then, Walter White came along. Suddenly, the “Hero’s Journey” just wasn’t enough for people anymore. They’ll still gladly embrace that narrative, so much so that they’ll make superhero movies a billion-dollar industry. However, audiences now show that they’re in the mood for something different. What else explains Bryan Cranston’s multiple Emmy awards?

Enter a different journey, one that has played out before, but never got the same attention or Emmy consideration as the Hero’s Journey. I’m talking about the “Villain’s Journey” now. The name may be unoriginal, but its formula is just starting to evolve.

So what exactly is that formula? Is it just the complete opposite of the Hero’s Journey? Well, it’s not accurate to say it’s completely unique to that narrative. It’s also not accurate to say it’s a mirror image that would warrant full-blown plagiarism like those practiced by certain presidential candidates.

To understand this formula, we still need to understand the particulars of the Hero’s Journey. Since this journey has been so studied and belabored, most of those details will be pretty familiar. Anyone who saw Star Wars, Harry Potter, or followed any superhero created by Stan Lee will recognize these details.

Familiar or not, the crux of the journey is that it’s a cycle of sorts. It takes a character down a path that establishes them as a hero archetype. So if we’re going to create a similar journey for a villain, let’s follow this same cycle.

Since I’ve been referencing it in multiple posts, I’ll use “Breaking Bad” and Walter White as the primary example. However, I’ll also cite other famous villains like Lex Luthor, Dr. Doom, and Flavor Flav when necessary. I’m not trying to recreate the entire breakdown that Joseph Campbell did. I don’t have the time, energy, or alcohol supply to do that at the moment. I’m just going to highlight the steps of the journey.

Step 1: Ordinary World (With Extraordinary Flaws)

This step is similar to that of the hero, but for the villain, the ordinary world shouldn’t be ordinary. He or she sees that state as a flaw. Walter White certainly did. He was a grossly overqualified high school chemistry teacher who’s run of bad luck and poor decisions put him in a horribly flawed situation. For a villain, that’s just untenable.

Step 2: Answering One’s Own Calling

This is where the villain starts to go in the opposite direction of the hero. For the hero, there’s a call that they must respond to. Whether it’s the murder of their parents or the destruction of their home world, something calls upon them to be heroes.

A villain decides to skip a couple steps. A villain answers their own call. Walter White didn’t need someone telling him to get into the meth business. He saw something he knew he could do and he did it. That’s all there was to it.

Step 3: Gaining Minions

Since the villain is the one making the call, there’s no refusal. There may be reluctance, but the villain doesn’t refuse their ambition, nor do they temper it. It’s a step they don’t have to take when compared to the hero. It’s a shortcut of sorts.

That shortcut gets even shorter once minions get involved. By minions, I don’t mean the kind of throw-away thugs that ever James Bond villain employs. I mean partners that the villain can use, manipulate, or persuade in aid to his goal. For Walter White, he found a minion in Jesse Pinkman. This partnership, while productive, wasn’t always healthy and Jesse certainly suffered at times.

Step 4: Tasting Their First Triumph

This is where the villain gets their first taste of what it’s like to win. It sometimes requires pain, sacrifice, and cunning, but there’s one important theme. They like it. They like it enough to want to do it again. Walt’s first triumph over Tuco, as well as his memorable reaction to it, shows that he’s starting to embrace this world.

Step 5: Beating Out Rivals And Gaining Influence

Once the villain has that taste of triumph, they seek more. They seek it like crack addict in withdrawal. This is where lines are crossed, friends abandon them, and the ambition gains a more selfish undertone.

This is where Walter White starts to ascend from small-time meth cook to full-blown kingpin. Lex Luthor and Dr. Doom underwent a similar journey, crushing anyone who stood in their way, often brutally. Gus Fring can attest to how brutal it can be.

Step 6: Accumulating Rewards (and Wanting More)

At this point, the villain is on top of the world. They’ve beaten their rivals. They’ve vindicated everything their ego has told them. They feel they’ve earned this success. They make any excuses for the lines they crossed or the people they’ve hurt. They reached the top and they’ve since stopped giving a damn about how they got there.

In Season 5 of Breaking Bad, Walter White reached this stage. It was no longer about making money for his family. He said it himself. He wanted an empire. He eventually got it, so much so that he had acquired actual piles of money. Even so, it never seemed to be enough.

Step 7: Hitting A Limit and/or Encountering A Rival

This is the part of the journey where the villain crosses paths with the hero. This is when Lex Luthor encounters Superman. This is when Dr. Doom encounters the Fantastic Four. It’s the proverbial wall that every villain reaches, one in which their endless ambition can go no farther. They can’t get any more and that pisses them off.

For Walter White, this was the point when his meth empire started crumbling. Enemies, including old partners like Jesse Pinkman and friends like Hank Schrader, turned against him. No matter what he did from that point on, his ambition and reward never went further.

Step 8: Endless Struggle and/or Self-Destruction

This is the final step in the journey, one in which the villain has long passed the point of no return. They cannot be redeemed, nor do they want to. They effectively accept their role as a villain. They lose more than they can ever regain. Lex Luthor loses his influence. Dr. Doom loses his power. They never stop and blame themselves either. They just keep fighting others who deny them.

For Walter White, he took the self-destruction route. While he did try to redeem himself to some extent, he never apologized for it. He even admits to his own wife that he did what he did for himself. In the end, it left him alone, but he still fulfilled his ambition. He still succeeded on many levels.

This marks the end of the Villain’s Journey, at least according to my formula. I’m not saying it’s definitive. I’m not even saying that it applies to all villains. There are parts of this journey in which it’s kind of a stretch to apply it to Walter White. There are times when he’s more anti-hero than villain. However, the theme remains the same.

The ascendance of Walter White within pop culture, as well as a growing emphasis on giving villains as much depth as heroes, will likely bring greater scrutiny towards the Villain’s Journey. For now, I’m just looking to get the conversation going. I’m a cook in the kitchen fooling around with the ingredients.

I don’t doubt that there are more skilled chefs who will come along and improve upon this formula. I also don’t doubt that we’ll see more characters go on this journey. They may or may not result in more Emmys for Bryan Cranston, but they will help bring greater balance to the never-ending narrative that guides heroes and villains alike.

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January 25, 2017 · 6:57 am

Magneto: The Original Walter White?

It’s a common pattern in pop culture. Elvis and the Beatles didn’t invent rock music. They just made it mainstream. “The Godfather” didn’t invent the Italian Mafia. It just made it mainstream. The movie “Deep Throat” didn’t invent blowjobs. The human race figured that out centuries ago. The movie just finally got around to recognizing how amazing the concept would be.

These patterns often play out before our eyes without us really noticing. Nobody ever realizes they’re part of something greater, at least until they’re being played by Denzel Washington or Daniel Day Lewis in a movie. There’s always some strange revolution going on and I’m not talking about the kind that involves fad diets.

When I decided to break down the impact of Walter White on villains and antagonists in pop culture, I knew I was a bit late to the party. “Breaking Bad” has been off the air since 2013. In that time, the cultural impact of Walter White and how Bryan Cranston brought this character to life has spread. Many have already done far more thorough breakdowns of this character that are far more insightful than anything I could ever do.

At the same time, however, a part of me still looks at Walter White and sees the same pattern that has played out in music, TV, and even porn. Like Elvis, Walter White didn’t invent the complex antagonist/anti-hero. He just made it mainstream. However, I think there’s another character who accomplished this while Bryan Cranston was voicing bad Power Rangers villains.

Which character am I talking about? What kind of character could’ve possibly captured the complexities and depth that Walter White embodied without having his own show on AMC? This character actually pre-dates AMC, cable TV, Power Rangers, and even hippies. His name is Erik Lensherr, but he’s best known as the X-men villain, Magneto.

Yes, this is going to be another one of those posts. If you’ve been following this blog for any length of time, you know I jump at the chance to relate anything I can to comic books, especially X-men.

I’ve already used X-men to highlight what I feel are relevant issues. I’ve cited an X-men comic as a prime example of a true relationship of equals. I’ve cited X-men as teaching valuable lessons in the importance of foreplay. I’ve even singled out one X-man in particular, Storm, as a more viable female icon than Wonder Woman.

That said, it should come as no surprise that I make another connection when the unapologetic comic book fan in me sees the opportunity. For Magneto, the opportunity is definitely there. Based on his story, his personality, and his actions, he can claim that he was Walter White before there ever was a Walter White.

That claim isn’t hard to justify to anyone who learned about Magneto from the X-men movies, specifically the first X-men movie in which he was played by Gandalf himself, Sir Ian McKellen, and the pseudo-reboot entitled “X-men: First Class” in which Michael Fassbender gave the character an uncomfortable amount of sex appeal.

Both these movies make it a point to emphasize one of the most important, not to mention traumatic, aspects of Magneto’s character. He’s a holocaust survivor. He didn’t just live through one of the greatest atrocities in the history of mankind. He lost his entire family in it. He literally saw humanity at its worst. Can anyone honestly blame him for being a villain?

Unlike Walter White, it wasn’t desperation or circumstance that made Magneto want to give a big middle finger to the human race and get the ball rolling on their successors. He’s always been a little pissed off at the world for allowing such an atrocity. When you’re surrounded by the greatest evils of humanity, is it any wonder why you would found a group called the Brotherhood of “Evil” Mutants?

Even if he does have a good reason for being evil, this justification alone doesn’t put Magneto on the same level as Walter White. A major aspect of Walter White and the concept he embodies is the complexity of his character. If Magneto were just another Dr. Doom wannabe who just happens to have a better reason for hating the human race, then this concept wouldn’t apply.

However, Magneto does have depth. He does have complexity. His history is rich with stories that has him navigating a vast gray area of morality. One day, he’s a reformed man who helps the X-men fight off killer robots trying to wipe them out. On another, he’s creating a giant mutant monster to unleash upon the human race.

This isn’t just a bitter old man who gets moodier than most. His shifting allegiances, as well as his efforts to walk that fine line between villain and anti-hero, doesn’t happen sporadically. Magical spells aren’t used to just make him a hero, although that tactic has been used on other characters in comics.

Magneto’s story, much like Walter White, follows him making hard decisions in difficult situations. The consequences of these decisions lead him down many paths, some of which get pretty damn dark. Just read Cullen Bunn’s 2014 “Magneto” series for proof of that. That series alone ensures Magneto deserves to be on the same level as Walter White.

What makes Walter White such a compelling character is that his struggle and his hard decisions feel so real. He’s a man struggling in a difficult situation, but those situations only serve to bring out the worst in him.

Magneto may live in a world of mutants, superheroes, and characters who ride cosmic surfboards, but what he endures is painfully real. He lived through a real atrocity that has scars that we, as a species, are still struggling to confront. Whether the evil within him was always there or influenced by these struggles, it still felt painfully real.

The X-men, and the mutant struggle that Magneto has always been a part of, embodies the struggles of minorities. Even X-men director, Bryan Singer, has cited these struggles as an important part of the mythos. The struggles of minorities and the atrocities they suffer is painfully real.

In the case of Magneto, the horror of these real events helped shape his fictional path as a character. Walter White can’t claim he endured such atrocities. He endured injustice, but not on the same level as Magneto. These forces shaped their respective stories and personas.

At the end of the day, it still leaves us wondering whether these forces actually made them evil or just brought out the evil that was already there. While it may involve a little of both in the grand scheme of things, it’s still a big part of what makes these characters so compelling. At least with Magneto, he can say he knocked first.

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January 24, 2017 · 6:54 am

Villains, Antagonists, And The Walter White Effect

He’s the bad guy. He’s the obstacle. He’s the one that the hero must outwit. To put it more succinctly, he’s the one who knocks. Call him what you want. Say he’s a villain, an anti-hero, and an antagonist. We know who these characters are and we understand their role.

Then, Walter White came along and ran the concept over with his car. Villains, heroes, and antagonists have not been the same since.

Some may argue it has improved the way in which we tell stories. Some may argue that it has been a detriment, creating a race of sorts to abandon old ideals and make every character feel all too human. For fictional characters not bound by the crushing limits of the real world, this can be a race that no one should want to win. However, I believe the rise of Walter White and “Breaking Bad” has raised the bar for characters of all types.

I call it the “Walter White Effect.” I know that’s not very original, but it sheds light on a concept that has been permeating pop culture since “Breaking Bad” became a phenomenon. We’ve seen it in movies, TV shows, comic books, and video games. What else explains Dr. Doom becoming the new Iron Man?

It’s just not enough for villains to be villainous anymore. It’s not enough for anti-heroes to have an edge anymore. Walter White has changed the way we think about protagonists, antagonists, heroes, anti-heroes, and everything in between. As an aspiring erotica/romance writer, I’ve already felt the effects of those changes and I even welcome them.

This is an issue that spins right out of my recent discussions on the nature of evil in humans. In discussing such a morbid topic, I tried to keep things basic while also trying not to make too many people want to spit in their own gene pool. For this discussion, however, I want to focus on just one of those trees in the vast forest of human evil.

In doing so, I know I’ll rile up those who don’t believe that Walter White deserves to be classified as “evil.” I understand that argument. To call Walter White “evil” the same way we call IRS agents evil is to cast too wide a net on a remarkably complex character. However, for the purposes of this discussion, I want to focus on the traits that highlight the “evil” qualities of Walter White and characters like him.

Those who have binge-watched “Breaking Bad” know Walt’s story well. He started off as this affable, sympathetic man who endured one too many bad breaks, if that’s not too fitting a term. He had a family who loved him, a baby on the way, and friends who supported him. On the surface, he had every reason to be a good person.

Then, the bad breaks added up. He was diagnosed with advanced-stage cancer and given only a couple years left to live. Being a grossly overqualified high school chemistry teacher, he was destined to leave his wife, son, and newborn baby with nothing. Something had to give. It led him down a dark path, one that eventually brought out the worst in him.

It’s a story that puts a major twist on the familiar “Hero’s Journey” that we know so well. In some respects, Walt started out as a hero, doing bad things for good reasons. He did what he did to provide for his family, not to snort crank off a strippers ass. However, that journey morphed into something very different, one that has set a new standard for heroes and villains alike.

Bit by bit, sin by sin, and excuse by excuse, Walter White descended into this evil mindset. He killed former partners. He also lied to others. He even abandoned his initial reason for becoming a criminal. It was no longer enough to just provide for his family. He was in the “empire business” as he put it.

These are not the thoughts, actions, and traits of a hero. This is no longer a character who deserves such sympathy. Walter White became a true villain. In the end, he basically admitted as such. He said outright, “I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it.” It effectively completed his journey into being a villain.

In doing so, Walter White proved something that nobody thought to prove. He showed through “Breaking Bad” that a villain’s journey could be every bit as compelling as a hero’s journey. It’s not enough for a villain to just be an egocentric, mustache-twirling asshat who wants to take over the world. Villains need just as much depth as heroes.

This presents a new challenge for everyone from movie producers to aspiring erotica/romance writers. It’s hard enough writing a compelling protagonist. The success of Walter White as both a villain and a protagonist effectively raises the bar.

Villains are now the new heroes. Anti-heroes generate more interest. What else explains the success of characters like Deadpool? It’s not enough for Superman, Batman, and Captain America to save the day anymore. We need villains who have better reasons for being who they are.

This effect has already skewed the standards somewhat and not just in the sense that it helped make Deadpool one of the most profitable movies of 2016. Just look at the villains in “Captain America: Civil War” and “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.” Nobody is going to mistake Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor or Daniel Brühl’s as Helmut Zemo for Walter White anytime soon.

We can, however, forgive some of these shortcomings because the Walter White Effect is still very new. It’s still sinking in. People are just starting to try and emulate the success of Walter White and not just through “Breaking Bad” spinoffs.

It happened with westerns. It happened with sci-fi movies. When someone stumbles upon a winning formula, others try to recreate it with varying degrees of success. What else explains the glut of “Die Hard” ripoffs in the 90s?

Even if this does mean we’re in for multiple Walt wannabes over the next decade, I believe the lasting impact of the Walter White Effect will be a positive one. I think it’s better for all mediums, be they movies or erotica/romance novels, when both protagonists and antagonists alike are compelling.

The challenge, however, is making that journey into evil a compelling one. Walter White’s journey was long and difficult. There were times he could’ve stepped off that path, but didn’t. In the end, as others have pointed out, Walt always had this evil tendency within him. He just needed the right push in the wrong direction.

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